


Pool Party

by sansybones, withtheworms



Series: Rehab Cabin DLC [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Napstablook is a bit of an enabler, Post-Pacifist Ending, eyyy lmao, pre-cabin, rehab cabin DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7767460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansybones/pseuds/sansybones, https://archiveofourown.org/users/withtheworms/pseuds/withtheworms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Rehab Cabin DLC fic by @withtheworms</p><p>Set Post-Pacifist ending, with monsters now living with humans on the surface.  Pre-Cabin: everyone is still adjusting to their new lives outside of the Underground and have yet to really notice the warning signs that Sans is exhibiting.  </p><p>Playing hooky in his favourite hiding place, Sans is interrupted by an old friend and finds out he has some 'splaining to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pool Party

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Rehab Cabin DLC fic/au/extended headcanon by myself and SansyBones. In a nutshell: Resets messed Sans up beyond repair and he has no concept of chronological time. Things get bad before they get better, but nothing's ever really "okay." It's sad! Anyway, there's (lots) more here: http://rehabcabin.tumblr.com/

The pool had been abandoned long before Sans found it.  

From what he could tell it had once been a public space, adjacent to a park with a pair of baseball diamonds, a large field, and a couple of basketball hoops.  The pool had been closed for some time, though, the change rooms locked and boarded up, surrounded on all sides by a tall chain link fence and a few sun-faded “do not enter” signs.  

The humans would honestly have to try a _lot_ harder than that to keep him out.  

The pool itself was empty, its blue-painted interior cracked and flaking, edged with scrubby grass and a few stubborn weeds.  A few inches of brown rain water had pooled in the lowest point of the deep end; an ideal breeding-ground for mosquitos, filmed over with old leaves, bits of trash, and a growing collection of empties.  

It was his own little home away from home.

He’d brought the inflatable pool ring as a joke.  It was an obnoxious novelty, meant to look like a doughnut, patterned with bright pink icing and flecked with pastel coloured sprinkles.  Sans was reclining in it, laying in the bottom of the pool, listening to the tinny sound radiating from the cheap radio he had propped on his stomach and unable to see anything beyond the purple-smeared sunset sky directly above him, when a small, impassive exclamation drifted down to him.

“Oh………”

It took him longer than it should have to notice he’d been discovered, the voice being so remarkably unobtrusive.  Cracking an eye socket open he pushed the overlarge sunglasses he was wearing up onto his forehead, tilting his head as far back as the inflated ring of the doughnut would allow.

“Heyyy Napsta.”

He probably could have greeted the ghost monster with less enthusiasm, but he would have had to try.  

Napstablook hovered just over the edge of the pool (which had them floating a good seven feet in the air, from Sans’ perspective) looking down at him, their entire body fluttering uncertainly.

“Hi Sans.” Their voice sounded friendly, but fragile, and Sans wasn’t sure they weren’t already poised to dissolve into tears.

He and Napstablook had been friends back in the Underground, before Resets had made everything complicated and unreliable.  Sans had spent entire days at the ghost monster’s house, listening to music and sitting in easy silence.  He tried to remember why they didn’t hang out so much anymore, but no ready explanation sprang to mind.  

“You’re at the bottom of a pool……..” Napsta mumbled, breaking Sans out of his attempt to sort through timelines and memories.

“Heh, yeah…” suddenly he felt very silly, struggling to sit up from the pool ring and only managing to make himself look more ridiculous. “Sorry for the state it’s in.  I, uh, guess I should a _pool_ ogize.”

He laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and trailing into embarrassed silence when Napstablook failed to join in.

“Heh… ah, wanna come down?”

Napstablook didn’t respond, but their ghostly form descended until they were hovering near Sans, who had managed to sit up with _some_ dignity in tact.

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting……”

“What? Nah,” Sans shook his head, waving a hand dismissively. “I was just-”

“It’s just… I heard your music……”

Sans glanced down at the radio still propped in his lap, a loose smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah.  It’s a pretty good song.”

They both listened to the song for a moment, the radio preventing the quiet between them from getting too awkward.

“It’s kinda funny,” Sans said as the final verse began to fade out, crossing his arms for lack of anything better to do with them. “I had this job at a human record store a little while back- for a few weeks, anyway… We listened to this song a lot.” He laughed. “You should check that place out, actually. You’d probably like it.  They sell a lot of vinyl, and stuff.  Right up your alley.”

“Oh….” Napstablook bent forward slightly, trying to hide an embarrassed blush that had swallowed up most of their ‘face.’ “I was the one…… who got you that job.  We were coworkers… until you got fired.”

“... Right.” Sans’ smile faltered, and he grimaced visibly. “I remember that.  Of course.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Blooky.”

“It’s okay,” Napstablook replied quietly, which only managed to make Sans feel worse.  He closed his eyes, pressing a clenched fist against his forehead, trying to remember the details of his time at the record store, managing only to dredge up a foggy half-memory of losing his temper over something that in retrospect felt profoundly trivial.

He hoped he hadn’t lost it at Napsta.

“I used to hide in the Ruins, back in the Underground…...”

Sans glanced at the ghost, who, while still floating a good six inches above the ground, had managed to bend their body in a way that made them appear to be sitting next to him.

“Oh yeah?”

Napstablook nodded.

“Just to be alone.  I didn’t want to bother anyone, or be in the way… I used to get pretty sad, and didn’t think anyone wanted me around...” they paused, considering something. “Coming up to the surface… didn’t make the sadness go away.  I still like to be alone, sometimes.  But… I try to remember to tell Mettaton if I’m going to be away for long.  So he doesn’t worry.”

Sans couldn’t help a tense, guilty smile, tightening his grip on his crossed arms as his shoulders hunched forward. “Is Paps looking for me?”

Napstablook offered an incorporeal shrug. “I heard him and Mettaton talking… Papyrus said not to worry about it, but I remembered I saw you teleport in here once.  I just thought I’d come and see…….”

“I’m not trying to hide from anyone,” Sans said, feeling he owed some sort of explanation. “I just… I like to get out sometimes.  Take a breather.  When you lay back, with the walls going up, and the stars above.  It sort of feels like, I dunno...”

“It’s like being back in the Underground,” Napstablook finished quietly.

Sans squirmed.  They were edging close to something he didn’t particularly want to talk about, and it was unpleasant. “Yeah, I guess.”

Napstablook lay back, looking up at the sky, which had lost its purple sunset streaks and was now a uniform burgundy-blue.  

“I miss it too, sometimes,” the ghost said after several minutes of contemplation, their silence glazed over by the soft drone of the radio, which had turned to ads for mattresses and local car dealerships.

Sans felt something sharp biting into him with a vehemence he didn’t expect. “I _don’t_ miss it.”

Napstablook jolted, sitting up quick, their form quaking visibly. “Oh…. I didn’t mean….” They immediately began to fade around their edges, their eyes turning glassy. “I’m sorry…...”

“Blooky.” Sans had to force the coaxing tone into his voice, feeling infinity more annoyed than he would have expected. “C’mon, don’t be like that.”

Napstablook remained quiet, settling as a dim, barely visible outline.

“Look, I’m _glad_ we made it to the surface,” Sans said, speaking as though he was reciting from a well-rehearsed script. “It’s just going to take some time to adjust.  It’s a big change, y’know? There’s a lot to take in.”

Napstablook said nothing, and Sans worried that they might have completed their disappearing act, but after a moment they spoke, their voice whisper-soft.

“I was pretty lonely in the Underground.  I wanted attention but I didn’t know how to ask for it, so…. I spent a lot of time on my own.  Now, on the surface…. sometimes I getting _too_ much attention....”

Sans couldn’t help small, cynical smile. “Heh, yeah.  Every human’s got questions, and none of them are afraid of getting right in your face to ask ‘em.”

Napstablook nodded, slowly becoming slightly less transparent. “They have a lot of weird ideas about ghost monsters…… They’re always saying ‘boo’ to me, even though I haven’t done anything wrong.  I don’t get it… And Mettaton keeps getting really upset about Hallowe’en.  He says all that stuff about ghosts being scary spirits is offensive…”

“Man…” Sans laughed weakly, momentarily burying his face in his hands to smother his snickering. “I do not _‘get’_ Hallowe’en.  I mean: I’m a freak-show they can’t gawk at _enough_ when I’m out buying a lottery ticket, but it’s okay for _them_ to hang all those naked bones in every window just because it’s…” he hesitated, his mind stuttering on the season. “Uh, that time...”

“Autumn,” Napstablook provided gently.  

“That’s the one, yeah.  Thanks.” Sans let out a heavy sigh, slouching back into the pool ring and gazing up at the now solidly dark night sky.

“Thanks… for letting me complain,” Napstablook mumbled as the radio picked up a fresh song; something gentle, about long roads and California. “Mettaton always jumps to extremes when I mention anything... It’s nice of him, but…... “

“He doesn’t really dial things down from 11, does he?” Sans asked, ruefully. “Paps says it’s charming, but that’s gotta get exhausting.  I mean, you cut him off in traffic and the guy’s calling you out by name and dragging your choice of bumper stickers on the Entertainment Gossiper channel...”

Napstablook made a sound that took Sans a second to identify as a giggle.

“I really missed hanging out with you, Sans,” the ghost admitted, the moment of mirth seeming to prompt it out of them. “When you stopped coming over, I didn’t know if I’d upset you, or if I’d just… annoyed you..... and then you never really came to work when I got you that job and… I’m sorry if I ever-”

“Hey,” Sans interrupted, the mounting guilt twisting a knot in his stomach. “Don’t sweat it, okay? It wasn’t you.  Things just got… complicated.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, looking directly at the ghost monster. “Y’know, I’m here most days that end in Y.  You’re welcome to come and... hang out, or whatever.  We can keep this place between you and me and just chill, like we used to in the Underground.”

Napstablook smiled in a way that was only expressed by their eyes, their body giving a small, excited flutter. “That’d be nice, Sans....”

Sans grinned, leaning back and pulling his sunglasses back down over his eyes, the sinking dread he’d felt when his hideaway had been discovered fading into the uneasy comfort of a shared secret.

“It’s a date, then.”


End file.
